Kill Switch (10 page)

I turned my head …

     … and …

         … looked at myself.

No, it wasn't a reflection.

I was on hands and knees looking at my body, my face, my own eyes staring back at me with total shock. The other me flinched back away.

“Wh-what—what the fuck…?” I said.

Or, he said with my mouth and my voice.

I—the other me—was still on hands and knees. I raised one hand and reached out toward him. Toward me.

There isn't a way to say this because there wasn't any way to be this. My brain felt different. There were other thoughts in there that weren't my thoughts.

I saw Lydia Ruiz, one of the most senior members of Echo Team, there. Laughing. Wearing only bra and panties as she walked across the bedroom floor toward the bathroom.

Only it wasn't my bedroom. I've seen Lydia in her underwear before. I've seen her naked once when we all had to strip out of contaminated clothes. But not like this. She was in frilly underclothes, not the plainer stuff she wore when going to war. She was singing along with a Bruno Mars song, translating it into Spanish as she sang. Then she unhooked her bra and hung it over the doorknob as she entered the bathroom and leaned in to turn on the tap.

I wanted to look away. I really did. This was not mine to see. This was not anyone's to see. Not even Bunny, who was her live-in lover. Lydia was in a private moment and my being there—however and in whatever way I was there—was an intrusive and violative act.

I said, “No!”

But I did not say it in my own voice. I said it in Bunny's voice.

The
me
over there gaped at the
me
here. I blinked.

And then it was me—inside my own flesh—staring at a bug-eyed Bunny who knelt nearby, one hand extended toward me, confusion and terror in his eyes. He collapsed flat on his chest and his eyes glazed. I fell over onto my side. Now that memory of Bunny's had somehow followed me.…

Followed me where exactly? Home? Back?

I mean … what the Christ just happened?

The memory of seeing Lydia in that private moment made me feel grubby, like a peeping Tom. That was not for me to see. It did not belong to my experience. And yet the memory was there. Fading … but there.

I closed my eyes. This was a dream. I was probably concussed. Or something. It wasn't real. Could not be, no matter how real it felt in the moment.

I lay there, uncertain of how to even think.

 

CHAPTER THIRTEEN

THE SECOND PULSE

BOSTON UNIVERSITY LAW LIBRARY

765 COMMONWEALTH AVENUE

BOSTON, MASSACHUSSETS

FOUR MONTHS AGO

The candidates stood behind a curved row of podiums. Seven in all, each from different states but all from the same party. All vying for the same party endorsement and the same office. Each of them holding forth on why they—and definitely not their colleagues, and in some cases friends—should become the most powerful man on Earth.

The moderator, Wilson Fryers, was the dean of the university's law college, and was both a son and nephew of multiterm congressmen. His textbooks crossed the line to become bestsellers, and his latest,
Thinking It Through: Smart Politics for the 21st Century,
had jumped back to the
New York Times
and
USA Today
lists as soon as this debate had been announced. Because of his firm hand with the candidates and his challenging questions, he was currently trending higher on social media than any of the six men and one woman who were trying to sell themselves to the voting public.

The auditorium was packed, with handpicked political science undergrads in the front rows and a lottery selection of students, press, and celebrities filling out the rest of the seats. Secret Service agents were stationed around the room and, Fryers knew, dressed in plainclothes and seeded through the audience. The debate was the last before the national convention, and the millions watching knew, as Fryers did, that this was going to come down to two key players. So far there was an even odds split on which of them was likely to get the full party endorsement. The trajectory of this debate would almost certainly settle that.

“Next question,” said Fryers. “Remember, please, that each of you will have two minutes for your statement and then we will open it up to the audience for follow-up questions.”

The candidates nodded, though some of them were obviously wary. The questions from the audience had been vicious. Polite, but uncompromising. Fryers loved poli-sci majors. No one asks a harder question, and most of them were better schooled in politics than the gameplayers on the stage. The disparity between what these kids wanted to know and the politicians were willing or able to say was obvious. And embarrassing. Fryers felt like Caligula at the games. There was blood on the sand and the lions were still hungry.

“This question is on immigration,” said Fryers, and he saw the flinches. He could imagine seven sphincters suddenly tightening. Nobody in politics wants to field open questions on immigration. It was an enduring hot-button issue and when things were this deep into the primary process, there was no more room for verbal gaffes. Just as there was absolutely no sage answer. No matter what a candidate said it would polarize a portion of the national audience. Fryers was sure that if he asked if the sky was blue, the politicians would have a similar hesitancy, because somewhere out there was a lobby group, religious group, environmental group, or special interest group who fundamentally disagreed. It was maddening, unless you were the moderator and any kind of controversy jumped your social media and book sale numbers.

“A recent study published by
The New Yorker
indicates that small businesses, including crop farms, would be adversely affected by tightening immigration standards. Should you be elected president, would you sign or veto a bill that—”

And the lights went out.

All of them. Lights, speakers, cameras, everything.

Bang.

The library was plunged into total darkness. No emergency lights. No alarm bells. Nothing. There was a shocked collective gasp from the audience. Fryers fumbled for the battery-operated backup microphone that had been placed there for situations like this. For accidents or power failures. He found the button, tapped it, bent to speak into the mike.

“Please,” he said, “remain calm.”

The only one who heard his voice was him. The microphone was as dead as the lights.

Fryers froze in place, immediately trying to remember the protocols drilled into him by the Secret Service. Wait. Listen. The emergency system will kick in.

There was a scream. Of course there was. Someone always had to scream. Someone always had to panic. Always.

“Idiot,” he muttered, because he knew what happened. What inevitably happened.

One scream became two. Became five.

He shot to his feet. “Everyone, please calm down!” he yelled.

The volume of panic was already rising. Fryers dug into his pocket to remove his cell phone, punched the button to get the screen. A flashlight app would be helpful. He was surprised everyone else wasn't doing the same thing.

Except the screen did not come on. His phone was dead, too.

That was …

His mind stalled. How could a power outage take out his cell phone? And the emergency lights were battery operated, too. The Secret Service had wire mikes and flashlights.

But there were no lights on in the hall.

None.

That's when he heard the screams turn into cries of pain and dull, angry thumps as blind people began fighting their way toward the doors. In total darkness.

Fryers tried to yell.

Tried to keep this from becoming what he knew it would become. Blind, destructive panic.

He tried.

And failed.

At the end of sixty seconds, when all the lights finally flared back on, and cell phones began automatically rebooting, and the speakers squawked with alarm bells, the crowd had already become a tidal surge of blood and broken bones.

 

CHAPTER FOURTEEN

THE VINSON MASSIF

THE SENTINEL RANGE OF THE ELLSWORTH MOUNTAINS

ANTARCTICA

AUGUST 19, 11:19
P.M.

Not sure how long it took us to recover.

Not sure we actually did.

Three, four minutes dragged by before I could even summon the willpower to rise, let alone the sheer muscular commitment. My head rang with the after-effects of the light. My brain felt bruised. The horrendous smell and taste still polluted my senses.

It was my flashlight that jolted me out of the daze. The light came on again. Pop, just like that. It wasn't a matter of the switch moving. The light had already been on but when that big machine did whatever the hell it did, the power in the flashlight simply died. Ditto for all of our other gear. Pop. Out. And now it was all back on. I turned my head and stared at the light as if seeing it could reveal some answers. It surely did not.

Top got to his feet first. He was the oldest of us, and probably not the strongest, but in many ways he was the hardiest. He struggled up and stood swaying over me, chest heaving from the effort, hands shaking as he checked his gear. The process of doing that kind of routine check made sense. It was a reset button to reclaim normalcy and control. Doing routine things can do that. When he was done he still looked like crap, but less so. He blinked his eyes clear, then hooked a hand under my armpit and pulled me up. My muscles were composed of overcooked rigatoni and Play-Doh. It didn't even feel like I owned a skeleton anymore. Top had to hold me up until I could stand, however badly, on my own.

It took both of us to get Bunny on his feet.

We stood in a nervous huddle, legs trembling, faces pale with sickness. Nerves absolutely shot. Burned out like bad wiring.

“Holy Mary, Mother of God,” breathed Top. And he crossed himself. I had only ever seen him do that once before.

Bunny wiped pain-tears from his eyes and sniffed in a chestful of air.

The machine sat there, cold and silent and dark. Around us the impossible city loomed, mocking us and everything we believed in. Top's prayer faded into nothing.

Bunny coughed, cleared his throat. “What … what…?”

“I know,” said Top.

Bunny's head snapped around. “Top, did you…? I mean…”

“I don't know, Farm Boy,” said Top, but he was clearly in distress that ran deeper than the physical. “This is some voodoo shit right here.”

“It's nuts,” said Bunny, shaking his head, “but for a moment there I…”

Once more his words trailed away, and he shot me a very strange look. A suspicious and horrified look.

“What?” I asked cautiously. “What did you see?”

“Nothing. I didn't see nothing.”

“Bunny … look, I saw something, too.”

His eyes widened. “What?”

“I saw something, too,” I repeated. “For a couple of seconds after that thing went off I saw…”

And I stopped, too. How exactly do you have that kind of conversation? You need to hear that someone else shared it so that it's not just you. And you're afraid that it is just you. But at the same time what if it's not just you and stuff like this is possible? You see the problem? There's no way to Sudoku your way out of it.

“Say it, Cap'n,” said Top. “What'd you see?”

I wiped sweat out of my eyes and took a moment. “I saw two things and neither of them make any sense,” I began. “I saw me—my body—kneeling a few feet away, looking right at me.”

“Yeah,” said Bunny, nodding but not looking anything but scared shitless about it.

“Then for a second I was somewhere else,” I continued. “I was in your cottage, Bunny. Lydia was there and…”

I let it tail off. Bunny's face went from a greasy mushroom white to a livid red.

“What else did you see?” he asked in a low growl. A frightened dog growl, but definitely a growl.

“The fuck does it matter what else he saw?” barked Top. “He saw it.”

Benny wheeled on him. “What makes you so sure?”

“Because I saw my ex-wife,” he snarled. “Clear as motherfucking day. Sitting at the kitchen counter drinking that shit mint tea she drinks and reading stock numbers off her damn computer. Want to know where Apple stock is right now? I can still taste that son of a bitching tea.”

He dragged a trembling hand across his mouth, which had become wet with spit. He looked at the moisture, shook his head, then they both looked at Bunny.

“What did you see, Farm Boy?”

“What,” exclaimed Bunny, “so we're all just going to accept that this stuff just happened?”

“What did you see?”

Bunny cut a look at me and then he looked up at the ceiling far, far above us. “I had a nightmare,” he said.

“What do you mean?”

“I didn't see Lydia or your ex, Top. I didn't see anyone I know.” He shook his head. There was a quaver in his voice that made his teeth start to chatter. It wasn't the cold, though, and we all knew it. He was simply that scared. “It couldn't have been anything but me freaking out. It was this weird place … like the beach, except the ocean was black and oily, and the sky was wrong. Not our sky, you know? The stars were wrong. And … and there were monsters.” He stopped and shook his head, unable or unwilling to continue. “There aren't words for it, you know?”

They both looked at me. As if I had any answers.

“I feel sick,” said Bunny. “That air we breathed? I feel like crap.”

He raised his BAMS unit. The light was no longer green. Now it flickered back and forth between green and yellow. Mine was doing the same thing. So was Top's. I peered at the tiny digital screen to see what kind of particles it had picked up, but all it said was:
SYSTEM ERROR.